On 8/16/07 12:07 AM, "Robert Burns" <rob@robburns.com> wrote:
> On Aug 15, 2007, at 10:43 PM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>
>>> [ snip - about Gregory's photo album]
>>> http://my.opera.com/oedipus/albums
>>
>> That photo album is a perfect example of extremely poorly generated
>> alt text. All of the images contain the alt text: "perception -
>> photography - image interpretation - blindness". Although it's
>> margially better than an empty alt attribute because it gives some
>> indication of there being an image, it seems to be worse than no
>> alt attribute, especially since it says nothing at all useful about
>> the images and is needlessly repeated on every one. That's the use
>> case the draft is trying to address by making alt optional in some
>> cases.
>>
http://my.opera.com/oedipus/albums/showpic.dml?album=212490&picture=3424812
The first comment...
" Backyard, towards the curb. Mouse, nicely framed, is sitting and staring
at the camera, on the stoop. The the tip its tail is resting on the doormat,
which you have cropped. The background includes the short alley, a bit of
the fence and the gate. There isn't much grass to speak of."
...would make a very good alt value, but like most sighted people I don't
think the photographer would bother writing all that text in the alt where
they knew the overwhelming majority of their visitors would not be able to
read it (and possibly not contribute as much for SEO).
Sighted people just don't write invisible content.
Now had that first comment instead been the "description" of the photo and
the blog system presented it as <figure><img><caption></figure> with the
text visible for sighted people to see and blind people to still hear, then
I could imagine my clients using our CMS actually going to the trouble of
giving _almost_ every image a description.
In the case of <figure><img><caption></figure> would alt really still be
needed?
Is <figure><img><caption></figure> even still an option being discussed?
Sorry, there are just too many messages on this list for me to keep up.
--
:: thyme online ltd
:: po box cb13650 nassau the bahamas
:: website: http://www.thymeonline.com/
:: tel: 242 327-1864 fax: 242 377 1038